SFT Cone Fender Systems and Bollards for New Container Berth in Marseille, France

In 2018, ShibataFenderTeam was contracted by Soletanche Bachy to design and supply fender systems for an infrastructure project of the Grand Port Maritime de Marseille Fos. A new quay with a length of 240 meters was built in the city of Fos-sur-Mer in Marseille, France. By extending the container quay in Fos Rotule, the container traffic in the Marseille region could be increased. The construction combined two existing quays into one larger container berth. All construction work was carried out while the two quays were in full operation.

To select the optimal fender system, our SFT engineers performed a finite element analysis (FEM). The design had to take into account that the pier is normally exposed to strong winds. In addition, the concrete height for installing the fenders was quite low. When determining the anchor lengths, 150 mm of precast concrete had to be considered. Therefore, the position of the fenders was rotated by 30 degrees and the lower brackets of the tensioning chains are at the same height as the lowest anchors of the fenders.

ShibataFenderTeam supplied 19 sets of SPC 1000 Double Cone Fender Systems with a steel panel design measuring 4,700 mm x 2,000 mm. Thereby, all rubber fender units were delivered pre-compressed. In addition, we supplied 14 sets of cast steel Bibloc Bollards with a capacity of 150 tons and 5 steel ladders with a length of 3,000 mm. We received the order in July 2018 and delivered the entire system in three partial deliveries by June 2019.

The successful project was handed over by Soletanche Bachy to the end customer Grand Port Maritime de Marseille Fos in September 2020. SFT expresses its appreciation for the trust in its expertise and wishes a successful operation on the new berth.